Astonishment turning to rage, Twig drew his own sword. But as he stepped forwards, half a dozen of the tawny shryke guards brushed him aside and fell upon the leaguesman.
Shrieking with fury - eyes glinting and feathers erect - they tore the cockade from his lapel and seized him in their vicious claws. The leaguesman struggled in vain as he was bundled away.
‘It was him!’ he protested. ‘Let me go!’
‘Oh, we'll let you go, all right!’ came the gleeful reply. ‘We'll let you go under the auctioneer's hammer.’
‘No, not a slave,’ the leaguesman shouted, and struggled all the more desperately. ‘You can't sell me as a slave. Do you not realize who I am … ?’ His voice was drowned out by the sound of scornful laughter as the shrykes dragged him away.
Twig shakily approached the dying waterwaif. He crouched down. ‘I'm so sorry,’ he said tearfully. ‘Ending up a slave would have been better than … than this.’
The waterwaif's ears fluttered weakly. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Nothing is worse than that,’ he said. ‘You saved my life, and I am happy I was able to save yours …’ His eyes widened abruptly as a spasm of pain racked his body. ‘And there is one last service I can do you …’
As Cowlquape and Spooler watched on, Twig lowered his head and listened intently.
‘You are looking for the missing crew of the Edgedancer,’ the waterwaif whispered hoarsely. ‘I read it in your thoughts.’
‘Yes,’ said Twig.
The waterwaif clutched at him weakly. ‘One of those you remember in your thoughts, well… I have seen him here … in the market.’
‘You have?’ Twig exclaimed. ‘Who is it? And where can I find him?’
‘He … he …’ His voice gurgled. Twig held the waterwaif up and put an ear to his mouth. ‘The Wig-Wig … Arena,’ he whispered, and his body juddered. There was a gasp. A whimper. And the light in his eyes flickered and died.
Twig laid the waterwaif back down and closed his eyelids. Cowlquape and Spooler crouched down beside him.
‘It wasn't your fault,’ said Cowlquape.
‘Yet he's dead, for all that,’ said Twig. He sighed. ‘What should we do with the body?’
‘The shrykes will take care of it,’ said Spooler. ‘Come, captain. There's nothing more you can - or may - do here.’
With heavy-troubled hearts, the three of them left. Cowlquape, who was last in line as they crossed over the nearest hanging walkway, glanced back to see that the tawny guard shrykes had returned to the scene. Two of them hoisted the dead body onto their feathery shoulders, and all six of them scuttled off. Cowlquape turned away.
On the far side of the hanging walkway, Twig stopped and looked round him. More than ever, he felt that the Great Shryke Slave Market was nothing less than an evil wood fungus, sucking the life out of its host, the Deepwoods, and all who dwelt in her. He couldn't wait to leave. He looked at Cowlquape and Spooler and knew that they felt the same way. But they couldn't leave. Not yet.
‘The Wig-Wig Arena,’ he said to Spooler. ‘Does that name mean anything to you?’
The oakelf's dark eyes widened with unmistakable fear. ‘Oh, yes, captain,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘It certainly does. I know all about the Wig-Wig Arena.’ He shuddered. ‘I only wish I didn't.’
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN •
THE WIG-WIG ARENA
Cowlquape suddenly looked up, breaking the silence that had followed the oakelf's words. His face was deathly pale. ‘Twig,’ he trembled. ‘It's started.’
‘What's started?’
Cowlquape lightly touched his woodthistle-shaped rosette. ‘My cockade,’ he said miserably. ‘The material is starting to wilt.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Twig. ‘It looks all right to me.’
Cowlquape shook his head angrily. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘It's gone all limp at the edges. I can't believe we've been here long enough for that to happen.’
‘That tally-hen did warn us to keep track of time,’ Twig reminded him.
‘Yes, but three days!’ Cowlquape exclaimed hotly. ‘We can't possibly have been here for three days. It's all a con, a trick to enslave more unsuspecting free citizens …’
‘Cowlquape, calm down,’ said Twig. ‘It hasn't rotted away yet. And anyway, what's done is done. We must look forwards.’ He turned to Spooler. ‘Time's running short,’ he said. ‘This Wig-Wig Arena,’ he said. ‘Can you take us there?’
The oakelf nodded and looked round about him slowly, thoughtfully. ‘By reading the signs in the market crowds, I can,’ he said. ‘Look over there at those merchants. See the greed in their faces? Follow them and they'll lead us back to the Grand Central Auction. Whereas over there, those gnokgoblins. See the way they stop, look around, then go on a few steps? They're browsers. They'll lead us to the livestock-traders and trinket-sellers.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Twig impatiently. ‘But what about the Arena? How do we know who to follow there?’
‘Bloodlust,’ said Spooler. ‘Look for bloodlust in the faces of the crowd.’ He continued scanning the milling groups of trogs and trolls, goblins and gnomes, leagues-men and sky pirates. ‘There!’ he said at last, and pointed at a gaggle of goblins. ‘That looks a likely group. Look at the purpose in their stride. The violence in their gestures. The glint in their eyes.’ He sniffed the air and shuddered. ‘I can smell their lust for blood, oozing from every pore. Oh, they're heading for the Wig-Wig Arena, all right,’ he said. ‘I'd stake my life on it.’
‘That's good enough for me,’ said Twig. ‘We'll follow them. And Sky willing we will find the crew-member the waterwaif saw there. Come on, Cowlquape. Before we lose sight of those goblins.’
They set off in pursuit. Ahead of them the group of goblins was becoming increasingly rowdy and, as that happened, so the numbers heading in the same direction increased as more and more, attracted by the noise, came to swell their ranks. Twig, Cowlquape and Spooler surrendered themselves to the stream. Past a tattooing-stall they went, a whip-merchant's, a leech-doctor's; past a corral of roosting prowlgrins, a flock of tethered vulpoons - impelled ever onwards by the excited crowd. They couldn't have escaped the forward surge now even if they'd wanted to.
Til say this for the roost-mother,’ a shrill gnokgoblin piped up. ‘She certainly knows how to put on a spectacle.’
His companion nodded vigorously. ‘Nothing beats a contest with a banderbear pitted against the wig-wigs,’
he said. ‘It's an absolute classic!’
Twig gasped. A banderbear? Pitted against wig-wigs!
‘Wasn't there a banderbear on board the Edgedancer?’ Cowlquape said in Twig's ear, whilst all the time fighting to keep up in the jostling scrum. ‘You think it might be the one that the waterwaif saw, don't you?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Twig. ‘I cannot leave until I know one way or the other.’
‘Still,’ Cowlquape went on, as he stumbled forwards. ‘A big strong creature like a banderbear can defend itself against wig-wigs, surely?’
Twig shook his head seriously. ‘I once saw what a pack of wig-wigs can do to a banderbear.’ He pulled a pendant from the folds of his jacket and held it up for Cowlquape to see. It was a tooth. ‘This is all that is left of that banderbear,’ he said.
‘But… Whoooah!’ Cowlquape exclaimed as the crowd abruptly squeezed in on him from all sides and surged forwards. He was carried towards a narrow archway. THE WIG-WIG ARENA, he read, in gold letters, as he was swept beneath the arch and on to a broad platform. He looked round. His mouth fell open.
‘Amazing, isn't it?’ said Twig.
‘Unbelievable,’ said Cowlquape. ‘The architecture, the planning - the size …’
They were in a bright clearing, encircled by huge trees. Tier upon tier of curved terraces had been suspended from the branches above to form a vast amphitheatre. At its centre, far below them, lay a deep torch-lit pit, ringed by mesh-like netting.
‘Move along there,’ came an irritated voice from behind them. ‘
Move right down into the arena.’
Cowlquape recognized the shrill tone of a guard shryke at once. His head buzzed with fear as, without turning round, he did as was told, stepping down off the platform and onto the first of the circular terraces that extended far down below them. Twig and Spooler followed him.
Down, they went; one terrace after another. Cowlquape took it all in, as they picked their way through the countless groups of chattering goblins and trolls.
The Wig-Wig Arena was like a giant funnel rising up from the forest floor at the bottom, where the bloody contests would take place, to the forest canopy at the top. One tree, even more massive than its neighbours, dominated the arena. It was directly opposite the terrace where Twig, Cowlquape and Spooler found themselves jostled into seats - a colossal ironwood tree, its black, spade-like leaves in sharp relief against the blondwood steps rising up behind it. Cowlquape looked more closely.
Attached to the tree's sturdy branches were several constructions: square platforms for the armed guard shrykes dotted here and there; a small, squat building beside a raised stage; cogs, pulleys and winding gear; a plank jutting out from the main trunk, leading nowhere. Further up the tree was a broad podium, with the brightly-coloured roost-sisters standing along its balustrade in a row. And above this - suspended from a network of heavy ropes - was an ornate royal-box. Inside it sat a solitary figure.
It was the roost-mother herself: Mother Muleclaw. She was resplendent in her crested head-dress, her firebug jewels and a diaphanous silver cloak which hung loosely over her rainbow plumage. No finery, however, could conceal the wickedness in her eyes. From her box, she had a perfect view of every inch of the arena.
As she cast her malevolent gaze round Cowlquape quaked, and his hand shot up to conceal his wilting cockade. Twig noticed the movement.
‘Cowlquape,’ he said gently. ‘Calm yourself.’ He swung his arm round in a wide arc. ‘There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of individuals here,’ he said. ‘They're not interested in us when there's so much money to be made.’
He nodded towards the slate-grey tally-hens already scuttling about taking bets from the growing swell of spectators. Cowlquape watched them for a moment.
‘No, I suppose not,’ he said hesitantly. ‘All the same…’ He looked across the arena and shuddered. ‘There's someone in there,’ he said, pointing to the squat construction below the podium.
Twig looked. He saw fingers clutching the bars at the locked door. Some poor wretch was about to meet his death - yet it was not a banderbear …
At that moment, a fanfare of trumpeting cut through the air. A roar of approval went up round the crowd. Cowlquape looked up into the ironwood tree to see a dozen striped shrykes perching in the upper branches, with long tasselled horns at their beaks. The fanfare was repeated. This time, the crowd fell still. All eyes fell on the royal-box.
Mother Muleclaw arose slowly. Her beak clacked noisily. ‘We are gratified to see so many here,’ she announced. ‘We know you will not be disappointed by this evening's contest. It isn't every night we get to see a banderbear in battle.’
The crowd roared its agreement. Mother Muleclaw raised her multicoloured wings for quiet.
‘Before the main event, we have a little surprise for you. The appetizer, so to speak,’ she said, and her beak clacked with amusement. She leant down from the box. ‘Release the prisoner,’ she demanded.
The guard shryke saluted with its tawny wing and stepped forward to unlock the door of the prison
beneath the podium. A portly individual appeared at the doorway and looked round with obvious confusion.
‘What? What? What?’ he blustered.
Cowlquape stared in disbelief - at the ornate jacket with its marsh-gems and mire-pearls, at the tricorn hat with the purple vulpoon feather, at the waxed moustache, the arched eyebrows, the pink, pudgy hands. ‘Thunderbolt Vulpoon,’ he breathed, and clutched hold of Twig's arm. ‘This is what he had planned for us!’ he whispered, his voice low with dread.
‘If I'd known,’ said Twig, ‘I'd never have handed him over to the shrykes. Not even a slave-trader deserves this.’
The crowd watched in silence as the guard shryke cracked her flail and drove the sky pirate captain towards the plank jutting out over the pit below. The yellow torchlight gleamed on his quivering features as he looked up at the hanging royal-box. ‘Why?’ he cried out. ‘For the love of Sky, why are you doing this?’
Mother Muleclaw squawked with irritation, and the shryke's heavy flail cracked Vulpoon around the head.
‘We had promised you a leaguesman from Undertown for your delectation,’ said Mother Muleclaw, addressing the crowd.
The crowd cheered happily.
‘Or perhaps even a Sanctaphrax academic,’ she said.
The cheering of the crowd grew louder still.
‘Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, this will not now be possible …’
The crowd booed and hissed. Mother Muleclaw glared down at Vulpoon. ‘All I can offer you is this miserable specimen. Still I am sure he'll put on an excellent show for you,’ Her voice became a raucous screech, that echoed round the arena. ‘I give you Thunderbolt Vulpoon, the sky pirate captain.’
A deafening roar went up. Cowlquape looked round in disgust at the rapt expressions on the spectators’ faces as they watched the hapless Vulpoon being prodded forward with a sharp pike onto the plank. A chant started up, and was soon echoing all round the arena.
‘Down! Down! Down! Down!’
Vulpoon stumbled forwards. For an instant, his body hung there at the end of the plank as if held by invisible ropes. Then there was movement again, and Thunderbolt Vulpoon was toppling forwards -
before landing in a bed of soft moss at the bottom of the pit. The crowd roared its approval.
For a moment, the sky pirate captain didn't move. Then, with a shake of his head, he climbed to his feet and drew his sword and dagger. He looked round - at the heavy curtain of netting that enclosed the pit; at the small holes cut into it every ten metres, allowing access from the forest floor outside. The crowd looked too, scrutinizing the shadowy openings for that first tell-tale flash of orange.
There!’ someone screamed. ‘Over there!’
It was the first of the wig-wigs. It dashed across the arena floor, looking no more frightening than an orange floor-mop. Until the creature opened its mouth! The crowd gasped as one as the powerful jaws snapped wide open to reveal the rows of razor-sharp teeth.
All round the arena, the arrival of the first wig-wig had prompted a flurry of betting. Tally-hens and tote-fledgers darted among the crowds, shouting out ever-changing odds and exchanging gold pieces (each one, checked with a sharp clack of the beak) for betting-slips.
‘Twenty-five on twelve minutes!’
‘Fifty on forty-seven dead wig-wigs.’
‘A hundred that he's got a maximum of ten seconds left!’
Sickened, Cowlquape turned away and buried his face in his hands.
At last, a roar went up.
‘YES!’
Louder and louder it became, until the terraces themselves were trembling with the noise. Above the uproar came the trumpeting of the horns. And still the clamour did not abate. One of the tally-hens trotted to the iron-wood tree and a message was passed up to the roost-mother.
Mother Muleclaw rose to her feet once more. A hush fell.
The sky pirate captain managed to kill forty-three wig-wigs before his demise,’ she announced. ‘And twenty-seven more were wounded.’
The winners cheered. The losers - of whom there were many more - groaned.
‘The contest lasted for precisely ten minutes and …’ she hesitated. The spectators clasped their betting-slips tightly. ‘Ten minutes and forty seconds. That's four-o. Forty.’
Again, the few excited whoops of delight were drowned out by a general groan of disappointment. Mother Muleclaw clacked her beak.
‘But now, my friends, we must proceed,’
she announced. ‘It is time for the evening's main event,’ She nodded at the shryke guard on the platform below her, who began turning a great handled wheel. The pulleys creaked. The ropes shifted. From above the hanging royal-box, the bottom of a heavy, ironwood cage began slowly to descend from the dense grey-black foliage.
‘A classic contest!’ the roost-mother shrieked. The ultimate confrontation! Power versus perseverance. The mighty versus a multitude,’ She tossed back her plumed head. ‘For your delectation and delight, a genuine … an extremely rare … in the prime of physical fitness …’
The crowd went wild with feverish anticipation; waving their arms, stamping their feet. And, as the cage came lower - revealing the fierce, furious beast pounding at the bars of its hanging prison - their bloodthirsty cries became more and more tumultuous. Mother Muleclaw smirked with self-satisfaction, and when the cage was hanging directly next to the royal-box, she nodded down at the shryke for a second time. The turning stopped. The cage juddered to a halt. Mother Muleclaw raised a great taloned hand.
‘I give you … a BANDERBEAR!’ she screeched.
Twig gasped. It wasn't just a banderbear. It was Goom. There wasn't any doubt. Even if he hadn't recognized his face, the tell-tale scars from the spiked pit that had once trapped him gleamed on his left flank.
Clucking softly, Mother Muleclaw reached out and stroked the claws of the banderbear which stuck out between the bars of the hanging cage. ‘I know he's going to give those wig-wigs a run for their money,’ she said, her voice oily.
The crowd - whipped up to a frenzy by the thought of the ensuing confrontation - had begun chanting once again.
‘Down!’ they demanded. ‘Down! Down! Down!’
Cowlquape's whole body shuddered with revulsion.
‘We must act quickly,’ said Twig urgently. ‘Go back to that prowlgrin corral we passed. Buy four prowlgrins,’ he said, giving Cowlquape a handful of gold coins. ‘The largest and strongest you can find. Then meet me round the other side of the arena, on the walkway directly beneath the branches of the ironwood tree.’